Improvement in the mode of coloring woolen hats



UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE.

G. D. FOOTE, OF DANBUBY, CONNECTICUT.

IMPROVEMENT IN THE MODE OF COLORING WOVOLEN HATS.

Specification forming part of Letters Patent No. 25,564, dated September 27, 1859.

To all whom it may concern:

Be it known that I, G. D. FOOTE, of Danbury, in the county of Fairfield and State of Connecticut, have invented a new and useful Process for Coloring Wool Hats; and I do hereby declare that the followingis a full, clear, and exact description of the same.

To enable those skilled in the art to fully understand and use my invention, I will proceed to describe it.

The felt used formyhats is dyed in the wool, as usual, and the hats are formed in the usual manner. Instead of applying the stiffening to the inside of the body and to the under side of the brim only, I dip my hats in the stiffening, which consists of asolution of shellac, so that the same are penetrated perfectly and equally 011 all parts by the dissolved shellac. I now put each hat, afterhavingdried the same, on a block which receives a quick rotary motion on a turning-lathe, and I remove all the surplus parts of the shellac by rubbing with sandpaper. By this operation the surface of the hats is rendered perfectly smooth and even, notwithstanding the felt used for the same may be of a very inferior kind, and the body of the hats and their brims are equally stiff and wafer-proof; but at the same time the color of the same appears materially changed, as the same, by the application of sandpaper and by the influence of the shellac, is rendered perfectly light, that part of the hat only where it was attached to the block and where it could not be reached by the sand-paper retainingits I original color. In order to give the hat the desired color and finish, I now apply the dye ing-liquidin aheated state by means of brushes, while the hat is still attached to the revolving block, and it thereby assumes a uniform color all over. The heated dyeing-liquid penetrates and combines with the shellac over all parts of the hat, and the color of the same is thus not only rendered more permanent and waterproof, but I am also enabled in this last stage of the operation to give the hat a darker or lighter hue according to the darker or lighter color of thedyeing-liquid.

It willbe seen thatIdispense with thesmoothing-irons altogether, and, in fact, it would not be judicious to apply such to a hat which has been dipped in the solution of shellac in the manner described above; but my hats will comeout at least one quality finer than they do when finished in the usual manner, and the color of the same is more uniform and better able to resist the influence of the weather than that of hats stiffened and closed in the usual manner.

Having thus described my invention, what I claim as new, and desire to secure by Let tcrs Patent, is--- The method of applying the dye to the hat upon which the stiffening has been applied, substantially as herein described.

G. D. FOCTE.

Witnesses WM. TUsoH, J. F. TUCKLEY. 

